Along with a tribute to James Bond’s 50th anniversary, Oscar telecast producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron announced today they’ll also pay homage to recent movie musicals during the ceremony February 24. The pair knows a thing or two about big-screen tuners with credits that include Footloose, Hairspray and 2002’s Oscar winner Chicago. The latter is part of the showcase as is this year’s Best Picture nominee Les Misérables. Here’s the release:

BEVERLY HILLS, CA – The Oscars will include a special celebration of movie musicals of the last ten years, the telecast’s producers announced today.

“The musical as a motion picture genre has had a remarkable renaissance in the last decade,” said producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron. “We are excited to showcase three musical films—‘Chicago,’ ‘Dreamgirls’ and ‘Les Misérables’— on our Oscar® show.”

Oscars for outstanding film achievements of 2012 will be presented on Oscar Sunday, February 24 at the Dolby Theatre™ at Hollywood & Highland Center®, and will be hosted by Seth MacFarlane live on the ABC Television Network. The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 225 countries worldwide.

Ugh. I bet they feature the deplorable NINE and PHANTOM OF THE OPERA also. This is so pointless and seems to be honoring their own questionable achievements. The great musicals are all long ago. The total crup pumped out nowdays is pathetic. Zaden/Meron are always to eager to stoke their own egos. Ugh.

Great! Now we can waste more time and make the show longer with unnecesary tributes that don’t make sense. A Best Picture winner that narrowly (according to The Pianist’s wins) beat its competition, a musical they disliked enough to NOT nominate it for BP and a musical heavily criticized that still got nominated for BP but missed director, screenplay and editing meaning that really didn’t like it that much.

Instead of bloating the show with irrelevant production numbers why not use the extra time to show more and better clips from the nominated movies and performances. Aren’t we supposed to be celebrating the movies of 2012? What does Chicago have to do with that? This isn’t the Tonys.

In 2001 Baz Luhrmann directed MOULIN ROUGE, which single-handedly re-introduced the movie musical to this generation, but has never received its due.
It wasn’t until the following year when the ham-tastic CHICAGO won praise hand-over-fist for finally being put to film after opening on Broadway 25 years earlier.
And now we should pay homage to the fact that Hollywood had re-discovered the cash-cow of regurgitating dusty projects from Broadway? DREAMGIRLS, also 25 yrs later, LES MIS, 26 years …
Instead of commending Hollywood on pilfering from the distant past, they should encourage the bold genius of making something unique that opened the audience’s eyes again.
Now THERE is an homage I would like to see – “Films that reintroduced genres”.

This is absolutely disgusting!!!! Allowing the show producers to honor their own work??? Giving an extra tribute for one of the Best Picture nominees? If the Oscars had any sense of decency or class, they would immediately cancel this idea. Inappropriate on so many levels.